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Request for articles : Second issue UMP - EURO

by Cindy Kerckhoffs

"I am sorry for crossed postings" Dear Urban Mobility Professional, As you are aware we have started an electronic magazine: The Urban Mobility Professional (UMP). The first issue of this magazine discussed the Y2K problem and has been send to our users at the end of May (http://www.mobility-net.com/ump/issue1.htm). We have had a lot of positive reactions from our members and we were very impressed by the interest shown by our urban mobility professionals. The second issue of the magazine will discuss information regarding the EURO. Again I would like to ask you as an Urban Mobility professional if you are interested to publish your views/information regarding the EURO in the upcoming issue of The Urban Mobility Professional. Documents received will be listed in The UMP and/or added to the Urban Mobility Library. You can send the information/articles by e-mail to C.Kerckhoffs@mobility-net. I am looking forward to publish your information in our second issue of our magazine. Best regards, Cindy Kerckhoffs Editor / Information Manager Urban Mobility Network P.s. I welcome any requests concerning future issues/topics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ Subscribe yourself to our FREE electronic magazine: http://www.mobility-net.com/ump ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------

25 years, 10 months

Census 2000 News Alert

by ed c

Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Following is the copy from the most recent Census 2000 News Alert - If you have any problems with the transmission, please call me at 202/326-8728. Federal Court Hears Arguments In Gingrich Lawsuit Against Census Sampling A three-judge U.S. District Court panel heard oral arguments today before a packed courtroom in the case filed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) challenging the constitutionality and legality of sampling in the census. District of Columbia Circuit Court Judge Douglas Ginsburg was joined by District Court Judges Royce C. Lamberth and Ricardo Urbina in presiding over U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce, the first of two lawsuits asserting that the Constitution and the Census Act (Title 13, United States Code) prohibit sampling in the census. The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued the case for the Commerce Department, first suggesting that the House did not have standing to bring the lawsuit because the current Congress (105th) would not be harmed by a census taken in 2000 and that the case was not ripe for judicial consideration because the House could still direct census methods through legislation. Judge Lamberth appeared skeptical of those arguments, pointing out that if the controversy over sampling was not settled soon, the decision on which methods to use would be irreversible and any potential harm to the plaintiffs caused by sampling was therefore inevitable if the Census Bureau proceeded with its plan. Lawyers for the House argued that Congress and the Administration had reached an impasse on the question of whether sampling can be used in the census, making it necessary for the courts to step in, an argument that Judge Lamberth appeared to embrace. Plaintiff's lawyers noted that the Bureau and the General Accounting Office believed that a decision on the census design should be made very soon. Both sides also presented their arguments on the constitutionality and legality of sampling methods. The government said that the Constitution contemplates the most accurate census possible, while the House's lawyers argued that the term "enumeration" in Article I, section 2, meant to count one by one, not to estimate. Judges Ginsburg and Lamberth seemed most concerned with plaintiff's suggestion that sampling methods are open to political manipulation. The government noted in response that traditional counting methods also can be manipulated to achieve a certain outcome. Plaintiff's lawyers also argued that the Census Act does not allow sampling to produce the census counts used to apportion the House of Representatives. They pointed to section 195 of the Census Act, which states that except for purposes of apportionment, the Census Bureau "shall" use sampling methods whenever possible. The government's attorney's countered that section 141 of the Act authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to determine how the census will be taken, including the use of sampling. They suggested that when Congress amended both sections in 1976, it intended to encourage the use of sampling whenever possible in data collection activities but leave the decision on whether to use sampling in the decennial census to the Secretary. The court also heard brief arguments in support of the government's position from intervening parties: the City of Los Angeles on behalf of 19 other cities, counties, and states, and 19 Members of Congress; House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and several other Democratic representatives; a coalition of Asian American and Hispanic civic organizations; and the California State Legislature. In a written statement, House census subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL), referring to arguments that the case was not ready for judicial intervention, said he was troubled that "the President is using taxpayer money to pay government lawyers to try to get the case dismissed." Rep. Miller asked: "Is he [the President] afraid that sampling will be found unconstitutional?" The lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives, at the direction of Speaker Gingrich, as well as the outside law firm hired to argue the case, are also being paid for with taxpayer funds. The government argued the merits of the case as well as pursuing arguments on whether the Constitution permits this type of case to be heard. Also in a written statement, Citizens for an Honest Count Coalition, a group of conservative organizations opposed to sampling, urged the court to rule quickly "before billions of dollars are wasted on a phony census." In an audio press conference yesterday hosted by the Census 2000 Initiative, constitutional scholar and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said that neither the Constitution nor the law prohibited sampling. Calling the lawsuit one of "the Emperor has no clothes," Prof. Tribe said that it wouldn't make sense for the framers of the Constitution to say the Congress should direct how the census will be taken and then limit those methods. Article I, section 2, says in relevant part that "the actual Enumeration shall be made [every ten years] in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct." University of Wisconsin history professor Margo Anderson, author of "The American Census," said that the Founding Fathers sought a way to depoliticize the process of allocating seats in Congress among the states and settled on a measurement of the population, but that they had not discussions about the methods for doing so. The other lawsuit, Glavin v. Clinton, will be heard by a three-judge panel in the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria) later this summer. In the Census Bureau's funding bill for this year, Congress directed that the courts expedite consideration of the cases, with any appeal going directly to the Supreme Court. HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: The Census 2000 Initiative Web site is nearing completion. Please forward any suggestions for hyper-links you think should be included to: Henry Griggs at hgriggs(a)ccmc.org. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

GAO dress rehearsal report

by ed c

this report, "2000 Census: Preparations for Dress Rehearsal Leave Many Unanswered Questions (Chapter Report, 03/26/98, GAO/GGD-98-74)" has been out since March but i just got an opportunity to read it. http://www.gao.gov/monthly.list/march/mar9810.htm

25 years, 10 months

JOIN THE URBAN MOBILITY FORUM / MAILINGLIST: PRESENT DISCUSSION INVOLVES YEAR 2000 PROBLEM

by Cindy Kerckhoffs

----------- Sorry for crossed essages -------------- Dear Urban Mobility Professional, As you are aware I have been doing research regarding the Y2K problem in relation to the mobility branch. In the Urban Mobility professional (UMP: http://www.mobility-net.com/ump/issue1.htm) I already mentioned that so far little attention has been given to the Y2K problem in relation to Urban Mobility which means that a lot of companies/organizations are not Year 2000 compliant. The articles published in the UMP confirm this statement. For example the article written by Martyn Emery about the study on the infrastructure robustness of the Greater London Area in the context of the Year 2000 Computing Crisis, in which he concluded that the Greater London Area scored a 49 out of 100 in their scale for Year 2000 readiness. It is therefore that I explicitly ask you as being an Urban Mobility Professional, to subscribe and participate in the Y2K Forum-discussion (http://www.mobility-net.com/forum/) (NEW: Mailinglist functionality included) and maybe contradict the fears Mr Martin Bangemann told a news conference: A lot of people don't seem to be worrying their pretty heads about it" (2000-problem), . (Reuters, February 25, 1998). I am looking forward to see your reactions. Cindy Kerckhoffs

25 years, 10 months

Scientific American Article on Sampling

by Chuck Purvis (MTC)

The following is the full text of an article on Census 2000 Sampling from the July 1998 issue of Scientific American. ************************************************************** http://www.sciam.com:80/1998/0798issue/0798infocus.html ************************************************************** Statistical Uncertainty Researchers warn that continued debate over the 2000 census could doom it to failure Censuses in the U.S. have always seemed straightforward_it's just a head count, right?_and have always proved, in practice, to be just the opposite: logistically complex, politically contentious and statistically inaccurate. Clerks were still tabulating the results of the 1880 census eight years later. The 1920 count revealed such a dramatic shift in population from farms to cities that Congress refused to honor the results. And a mistake in doling out electoral college seats based on the 1870 census handed Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency when Samuel J. Tilden should in fact have been awarded the most votes. But after 1940 the accuracy of the census at least improved each decade, so that only 1.2 percent of the population slipped past the enumerators in 1980, according to an independent demographic analysis. That trend toward increasing accuracy reversed in 1990, however. The Census Bureau paid 25 percent more per home to count people than it had in 1980, and its hundreds of thousands of workers made repeated attempts to collect information on every person in every house_what is called a full enumeration. Nevertheless, the number of residents left off the rolls for their neighborhood rose to 15 million, while 11 million were counted where they should not have been. The net undercount of four million amounted to 1.8 percent of the populace. Less than 2 percent might be an acceptable margin of error were it not that some groups of people were missed more than others. A quality-check survey found that blacks, for example, were undercounted by 4.4 percent; rural renters, by 5.9 percent. Because census data are put to so many important uses_from redrawing voting districts and siting schools to distributing congressional seats and divvying up some $150 billion in annual federal spending_all agree that this is a problem. In response, Congress unanimously passed a bill in 1991 commissioning the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study ways to reduce cost and error in the census. The expert panel arrived at an unequivocal conclusion: the only way to reduce the undercount of all racial groups to acceptable levels at an acceptable cost is to introduce scientific sampling into the April 1, 2000, census and to give up the goal of accounting directly for every individual. Other expert groups, including a special Department of Commerce task force, two other NAS panels, the General Accounting Office and both statisticians' and sociologists' professional societies, have since added their strong endorsement of a census that incorporates random sampling of some kind. After some waffling, the Census Bureau finally settled last year on a plan to use two kinds of surveys. The first will begin after most people have mailed back the census forms sent to every household. Simulations predict that perhaps one third of the population will neglect to fill out a form_more in some census tracts (clusters of adjacent blocks, housing 2,000 to 7,000 people) than in others, of course. To calculate the remainder of the population, census workers will visit enough randomly selected homes to ensure that at least 90 percent of the households in each tract are accounted for directly. So if only 600 out of 1,000 homes in a given tract fill out forms, enumerators will knock on the doors of random nonrespondents until they add another 300 to the tally. The number of denizens in the remaining 100 houses can then be determined by extrapolation, explains Howard R. Hogan, who leads the statistical design of the census. After the initial count is nearly complete, a second wave of census takers will fan out across the country to conduct a much smaller quality-control survey of 750,000 homes. Armed with a more meticulous (and much more expensive) list of addresses than the census used, this so-called integrated coverage measurement (ICM) will be used to gauge how many people in each socioeconomic strata were overcounted or undercounted in the first stage. The results will be used to inflate or deflate the counts for each group in order to arrive at final census figures that are closer to the true population in each region. "We endorsed the use of sampling [in the first stage] for two reasons," reports James Trussell, director of population research at Princeton University and a member of two NAS panels on the census. "It saves money, and it at least offers the potential for increased accuracy, because you could use a smaller, much better trained force of enumerators." The Census Bureau puts the cost of the recommended, statistics-based plan at about $4 billion. A traditional full enumeration, it estimates, would cost up to $800 million more. The ICM survey is important, says Alan M. Zaslavsky, a statistician at Harvard Medical School, because it will reduce the lopsided undercounting of certain minorities. "If we did a traditional enumeration," he comments, "then we would in effect be saying one more time that it is okay to undercount blacks by 3 or 4 percent_we've done it in the past, and we'll do it again." Republican leaders in Congress do not like the answers given by such experts. Two representatives and their advocates, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich, filed suits to force the census takers to attempt to enumerate everyone. Oral arguments in one trial were set for June; the cases may not be decided until 1999. The Republicans' main concern, explains Liz Podhoretz, an aide to the House subcommittee on the census, is "that the ICM is five times bigger than the [quality-check survey performed] in 1990, and they plan to do it in half the time with less qualified people. And it disturbs them that statisticians could delete a person's census data" to adjust for overcounted socioeconomic groups. Although the great majority of researchers support the new census plan, there are several well-respected dissenters. "I think the 2000 design is going to have more error than the 1990 design," says David A. Freedman of the University of California at Berkeley. The errors to worry about, he argues, are not the well-understood errors introduced by sampling but systematic mistakes made in collecting and processing the data. As an example, Freedman points out that a computer coding error made in the quality check during the last census would have erased one million people from the country and erroneously moved a congressional seat from Pennsylvania to Arizona had the survey data been used to correct the census. That mistake was not caught until after the results were presented to Congress. "Small mistakes can have large effects on total counts," adds Kenneth W. Wachter, another Berkeley statistician. "There are ways to improve the accuracy without sampling," Podhoretz asserts. "Simplifying the form and offering it in several languages, as is planned, should help. They should use [presumably more familiar] postal workers as enumerators. They should use administrative records, such as welfare rolls." "That shows appalling ignorance," Trussell retorts. "Our first report addressed that argument head-on and concluded that you cannot get there by doing it the old way. You're just wasting a lot of money." Representative Dan Miller of Florida was planning to introduce a bill in June that would make it illegal to delete any nonduplicated census form from the count. Such a restriction would derail the census, Trussell warns. "The idea behind sampling is not to eliminate anybody but to arrive at the best estimate of what the actual population is. Surely the goal is not just to count as many people as possible?" As the debate drags on, the brinkmanship is making statisticians nervous. Podhoretz predicts that "some kind of a showdown is likely next spring." That may be too late. "You don't want to redesign a census at the last minute," Freedman says. "I think the two sides should just agree to flip a coin," Trussell says. "To think next year about what we're going to do is madness." Wachter concurs: "We must not let the battle over sampling methods destroy the whole census." Otherwise April 1, 2000, may make all involved look like April fools. --W. Wayt Gibbs in San Francisco ****************************************************************

25 years, 10 months

Census News Alert 2000

by ed c

Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:29:33 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> June 8, 1998 NEWS ALERT Census Monitoring Board Sets Ground Rules, Divides Money, In Effort To Establish Bipartisan Role Sampling Opponents Criticize President's Houston Census Event The Census Monitoring Board, established in a funding bill last fall as part of the so-called compromise agreement over the use of sampling in the census, held its first meeting on June 3 in a House of Representatives meeting room. All eight Board members gave brief opening remarks, with some suggesting that they were skeptical of the Census Bureau's plan to supplement traditional counting methods with statistical sampling and others stating that the census could not be improved without adding new methods. The Board discussed administrative matters for most of the session, deciding how to divvy up its annual $4 million budget, hire staff, and keep track of spending. Board members agreed to set aside $1 million for joint professional staff and projects, with the remaining funds divided equally between the President's appointees and those appointed by the Republican congressional leadership. They put off adopting rules for how the joint funds would be spent but agreed in principle that all members would keep the Board informed about the substance and purpose of projects undertaken independently by either side. The Board also adopted a recommendation by Republican co-chair Kenneth Blackwell to let the Government Printing Office (GPO) handle the Board's accounting after agreeing to a request by Democratic co-chair Tony Coelho that information about expenditures be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (As an agency of the Legislative Branch, GPO is not subject to FOIA by law. The law creating the Board had designated the General Services Administration as the fiscal agent; GSA is subject to FOIA.) Board members were sworn in as official Census Bureau employees, giving them access to confidential information collected by the Bureau. In his opening remarks, Mr. Blackwell said that he had tried to meet with Acting Census Bureau Director James Holmes earlier that day but had been rebuffed. Mr. Blackwell said the encounter did not bode well for establishing a cooperative relationship with the Bureau. Presidentially-appointed Board member Everett Ehrlich responded that Mr. Holmes had received the meeting request only two days before and had tried to notify Mr. Blackwell that he could not be available due to previous commitments. The Board has set July 8 as the tentative date for its next meeting. Future meetings will be announced in the Federal Register and open to the public unless the Board votes to close the meeting. Administration activities: President Clinton made his first extended public comments about the 2000 census on June 2, visiting the Magnolia Multi-Service Center WIC facility in Houston, TX, and participating in a roundtable discussion with local civic, elected and religious leaders. Roundtable participants discussed the importance of an accurate census to transportation, housing, health and child care, rural development, education, and other policies and programs. Commerce Deputy Secretary Robert Mallett, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), co-chair of the congressional census caucus, and Rep. Tom Sawyer (D-OH), former chairman of the House census oversight subcommittee, accompanied the President to Houston. The President said he wanted "[to] put a human face on the census and its consequences" and that "an inaccurate census distorts our understanding of the needs of our people [and] diminishes the quality of life not only for them, but for all the rest of us as well." He said the Census Bureau must use "the most up-to-date, scientific, cost-effective methods" to take an accurate census. "This is not a political issue, this is an American issue," Clinton said, noting that it was "unfortunate" that some in Congress oppose the use of sampling to count the population. The President acknowledged the difficulty in explaining why sampling can help produce a more accurate count to the general public. Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Census, and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), head of the House Republican Conference, both issued written statements in response to the President's Houston remarks. Rep. Miller accused the President of "peddling statistical snake-oil." "We've heard enough of his 'political' science. Where is the 'empirical' science?" Rep. Miller asked. Rep. Boehner also charged the President with politicizing the census and said that sampling "corrupts a basic sense of fairness by treating people as numbers that can be estimated, rather than individuals who have a right to be counted." Race and ethnicity update: The Census Bureau's Advisory Committees held a joint meeting on June 3 to discuss the development of guidelines for tabulating multiple responses to the race question in the 2000 census and other Federal data collection activities. Census Bureau staff presented several guideline options, noting that there were 63 possible combinations of reporting responses to the race question, including the six individual categories established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Tabulation options include "collapsing" the information into fewer categories for some combinations; reassigning multiple responses, either randomly or according to predetermined "priorities," to the original, individual categories; and reporting all combinations with each race identified in the combination, producing totals that exceed 100 percent. Advisory Committee participants raised several issues for further consideration and research, including maintaining the comparability of data over time, identification of households (as opposed to individuals) by race, and protecting confidentiality at the smaller geographic levels, particularly when demographic or economic characteristics are tabulated by race. An example of the latter problem would be reporting the number of households identified as Black/Asian/White with incomes under $25,000 for a group of census blocks; the incidence of these combined characteristics may be too small to protect the privacy of respondents. Only 15 racial categories will be reported for this year's Census Dress Rehearsal while the Bureau and a Federal interagency task force continue their research. OMB expects to publish final tabulation guidelines by next winter. Legal update: A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in the case of U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday, June 11, beginning at 10:00 a.m. The Federal courthouse is located at 3rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W. Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn and several other parties that have joined the lawsuit in support of the Census Bureau's 2000 census plan will hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. on the steps of the courthouse to discuss the key issues in the case, which centers around the constitutionality of using sampling in the census. Census preparations: The Census Bureau has chosen its sites for the data capture centers, where millions of questionnaires will be processed during the 2000 census. The sites are Baltimore County, MD; Pamona, CA; and Phoenix, CA. Census forms will also be processed at the Bureau's permanent data capture facility in Jeffersonville, IN. The facilities will be built and operated by TRW, which was awarded the contract earlier this year. TRW also will recruit and train temporary workers to staff the facilities. Stakeholder activities: The 2000 Census Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Commerce will hold its quarterly meeting on June 11 - 12, at the Francis Amasa Walker Conference Center, Bureau of the Census, 4700 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD, beginning at 8:45 a.m. each day. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

Census 2000 News

by ed c

Subject: Census 2000 News Alert Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:50:50 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Following is the copy from the most recent Census 2000 News Alert. If you have any problems, please call me at 202/326-8728. June 1, 1998 NEWS ALERT D.C. Court Lets Los Angeles, Other Cities Join Census Lawsuit Census Monitoring Board Set To Meet A federal court has ruled that the City of Los Angeles, 19 other states, cities, and counties, and 19 Members of Congress may officially join the lawsuit brought by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to prevent the use of sampling in the 2000 census. Los Angeles had sought to intervene in U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce in support of the Census Bureau's 2000 census plan. As "intervenor-defendants," Los Angeles and the other stakeholder parties argue that the Constitution contemplates an accurate census, not a particular method for achieving the population count. Oral arguments before a special three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will be heard on June 11, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Census Monitoring Board update: The Census Monitoring Board, established in the Census Bureau's current year funding bill, will hold its first meeting on Wednesday, June 3, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 2203 Rayburn House Office Building. The meeting is open to the public. Funding update: House appropriators are ready to start drafting the 13 funding bills that will keep Federal agencies running in Fiscal Year 1999 (FY99), which begins on October 1. Before heading home for the Memorial Day break, the Committee on Appropriations divided up $532.8 billion in discretionary funds that will be available for Federal programs next year. The Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and The Judiciary and Related Agencies, which covers the Census Bureau, received $32.34 billion, almost $200 million more than its counterpart Senate panel but still $1.04 billion less than the Administration requested. The Senate subcommittee will divide $32.16 billion among the diverse programs in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and several other independent agencies, as well as the Federal judiciary. The Administration requested $848 million for 2000 census activities in FY99. Administration activities: President Clinton will shine a spotlight on the importance of an accurate census when he visits Houston, Texas, tomorrow. The President will participate in a roundtable discussion on key census issues with local political and civic leaders. Important administrative note: Census 2000 Initiative project consultant TerriAnn Lowenthal has a new e-mail address, effective immediately. You may now direct questions to TerriAnn at <terriann2K(a)aol.com>. Also, effective June 26, TerriAnn can be reached at a new work number, 202/484-2270. We'll remind you of this change as the date approaches. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2K(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

News Alert

by ed c

Subject: Census 2000 News Alert Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 12:04:21 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> May 22, 1998 NEWS ALERT Subcommittee Hears Nearly Unanimous Support For Census 'Long Form' in 2000 Conservative Organizations Form Coalition To Prevent Sampling In Census At an oversight hearing yesterday to review the proposed 'short' and 'long' questionnaires for the 2000 census, a parade of witnesses representing a diverse range of stakeholders told legislators that demographic and economic data collected in the census were vital to support decisionmaking, planning, and resource allocation by local governments, community-based service providers, and private business. They noted that the $400 million cost of including a long form in the census was a modest investment, given the nearly $200 billion in Federal funds alone that are allocated each year to state and local governments on the basis of census data. Supporters of the long form also suggested that it was not responsible for the drop in census participation, since the number of questions has been reduced over the past few decades while response rates continued to fall. The House Subcommittee on the Census heard testimony from Rep. Constance Morella (R-MD), sponsor of legislation (H. Con. Res. 246) in support of continuing the census long form in 2000; Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL), sponsor of a bill (H.R. 2081) to require the collection of data on family caregivers in the census; David Clawson, American Association of State Transportation and Highway Organizations; Helen Samhan, Working Group on Ancestry in the U.S. Census; James Hubbard, The American Legion; David Crowe, representing the Coalition to Preserve Census Data, a group of industry and business associations; Wen-Yen Chen, Formosan Association for Public Affairs; and Marlo Lewis, Jr., Competitive Enterprise Institute, a self-described public interest group that promotes private voluntary alternatives to government programs and regulations. Only Mr. Lewis spoke against the continued collection of demographic and socio-economic data in the census, saying that the long form contributes to public distrust of government and that at a minimum, response should be voluntary. Mr. Chen proposed that the race question include Taiwanese as a separate category that respondents can check off. In 1990, the Census Bureau did not tabulate Taiwanese as a separate race, citing concerns by the State Department that diplomatic relations with China might be harmed. Respondents who received a long form could indicate Taiwanese background on the ancestry question. Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL) said: "There's no question that we'll have a long form in 2000." He did not indicate whether he supported the range of questions proposed by the Census Bureau or maintaining the sample size of 17 percent (an average of one in six) of housing units. The chairman said he intends to hold additional hearings on the Census Bureau's proposal to eliminate the long form in 2010 by implementing a continuous survey (known as the American Community Survey, or ACS) throughout the decade to collect the same range of information and produce annual estimates for every jurisdiction. The panel's senior Democrat, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), held up a copy of USA Today with all of the articles cut out that referenced data derived directly or indirectly from the census long form. Most of the front page was gone, as were several other articles and one editorial. Rep. Vince Snowbarger (R-KS) asked several witnesses why local governments couldn't do a better job at collecting data on their own communities. Advocacy campaign against sampling: About a dozen organizations generally associated with conservative causes announced the formation of the Citizens for an Honest Count Coalition at a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday. Led by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the organizations announced a grassroots campaign to "save the 2000 Census from political manipulation by the Clinton Administration" by preventing the use of sampling to conduct the count. ATR also opposes continuation of the long form questionnaire. Among the groups announcing their involvement in the effort were the Washington Legal Foundation, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA), and the 60 Plus Association, which describes itself as a conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). 60 Plus said that sampling "will hurt senior citizens," who may find themselves "subject to large tax increases [because] federal aid [will] shift to the areas (e.g. urban areas) which were 'statistically sampled'." Rep. Carolyn Maloney, co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on the Census, said in a written statement that "a simple look at the background of the groups involved shows that they all represent one, partisan group: the Republican National Committee." She called the new coalition a "farce" and "partisanship at its most damaging." Maloney said that ATR received funds from the Republican National Committee during the 1996 election campaign and the LEAA was founded with funds from the National Rifle Association. Appropriations update: Congress continues to proceed slowly on legislation that will fund the Federal government in Fiscal Year 1999, with the House falling well behind the usual schedule for budget and funding bills. The Senate approved its version of a budget resolution for FY99 in April and its appropriations panel has now set broad spending levels for each of 13 budget categories. The Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and The Judiciary, which funds the Census Bureau, received an allocation of $32.2 billion, about $1.2 billion (3.6 percent) below the President's request of $33.4 billion. The subcommittee must now draft and approve a bill that divides the $32.2 billion among all of the agencies and programs under its jurisdiction, ranging from weather programs to criminal justice activities to State Department priorities to the census. In the House this week, the Budget Committee cleared a FY99 budget resolution that provides broad guidance to the appropriators on spending and revenues. Congress is supposed to approve a budget resolution each year by April 15 but often misses the legal deadline. The House Appropriations Committee is poised to divvy up among its subcommittees the $1.7 trillion that will be available for Federal programs in FY99, even before the full House approves the tardy budget measure. Committee roster change: Rep. Ron Lewis (R-KY) has been appointed to take the place of Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) on the Subcommittee on the Census, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Rep. Lewis joined the full committee recently to fill a vacancy created by the death of Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM), who recently succumbed to cancer. Stakeholder activities: The National Urban League, a member of the 2000 Census Advisory Committee, co-hosted a meeting with Census Bureau officials on May 5 in New York City to discuss ways of promoting the 2000 census in the African American community. Urban League President Hugh Price spoke to program participants, who also heard from Acting Census Bureau Director James Holmes and New York Regional Director Tony Farthing. The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. hosted a discussion about the census at its annual policy conference on May 19 in Washington, D.C. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Census Bureau Associate Director for Field Operations Marvin Raines, and Census 2000 Initiative project consultant TerriAnn Lowenthal discussed ways that civic organizations can help ensure an accurate census in 2000. Worth reading: An article in the May/June 1998 issue of The Sciences,gives a particularly comprehensive and clear picture of how the census is taken, and the major issues involved in achieving an accurate count. Please contact Henry Griggs at the Communications Consortium Media Center (<hgriggs(a)ccmc.org>) is you cannot obtain a copy on your own. Coming soon to a web site near you! The Census 2000 Initiative is nearing completion of its web site to keep census stakeholders informed about key policy issues affecting the next count. The site will include recent News Alerts, an archive of past News Alerts, fact sheets on key issues, and links to stakeholder organizations involved in census activities or issues. If your organization (nonpartisan) maintains a web site with census-related information, please let us know. Watch for details about the Initiative's site in future News Alerts. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <TerriAnnL(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 11 months

Iguana White Paper

by mail＠iguanaware.com

Iguana Incorporated would like to announce availability of a new white paper which is called "TRANSPORTATION ANALYSIS IN THE INFORMATION AGE". The paper describes issues and opportunities in tranportation planning and analysis related to the availability and use of information technology such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. It provides an informative summary of the impacts of such technology, and describes how Iguana software enables the planner to take advantage of it. To view or download the paper click <http://www.iguanaware.com/web_htm/res&proj/res02.htm> or visit our web site at the address listed below. Live demonstrations of IguanaWebWorks will be available shortly using a standard browser interface. Feedback is appreciated. You can also view our first newsletter (February 1998) at <http://www.iguanaware.com/web_htm/news&press/feb27-98.pdf>. The newsletter is in PDF format, which requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing. Acrobat Reader is available for free at <http://www.adobe.com/>. Edward F. Granzow Iguana Incorporated ph - (916) 546-3113 fax - (916) 546-3119 email - <mailto:efgranzow@iguanaware.com> web - <http://www.iguanaware.com/>

25 years, 11 months

Re:American Scientist Article on Sampling & Census2000

by ed c

Chuck-- I saw Pat Hu last week and she knows Tommy Wright. She had copies of the article and gave me one. I can certainly make it available if someone wants it. I can slip you one in Portland and bring some for Seattle. I think the article is a must read for anyone who is interested in understanding the mechanical concepts behind "ratio estimation" with a "dual-system estimation" process. It is the kind of article that will be kept inside my textbooks dealing with survey design. And well worth a read---just don't ask me to re-explain the techniques. <g> Thanks for putting us on the scent of the article. ed christopher Chuck Purvis (MTC) wrote: > Dear CTPP-Newsers: > > I came across this reference to an article on "Sampling and Census > 2000: The Concepts" published by the "American Scientist" magazine. > Unfortunately, a full text of this article is not provided. The > article is by Dr. Tommy Wright of the Census Bureau. An abstract, and > a discussion forum, is at: > > http://www.amsci.org/amsci/articles/98articles/wright.html > > If anybody can find a copy of this journal, a few of us might be > interested in reading it. (Or maybe we could get a copy from Dr. > Wright?) > > Chuck Purvis > ******************************************************* > e-mail: cpurvi(a)mtc.dst.ca.us *or* cpurvi(a)mtc.ca.gov > or cpurvis(a)mtc.dst.ca.us *or* cpurvis(a)mtc.ca.gov > Chuck Purvis, AICP > Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst, Planning Section > Metropolitan Transportation Commission > 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607-4700 > (510) 464-7731 (voice) (510) 464-7848 (fax) > WWW: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/ (New Address: FEB1398) > MTC DataMart & InfoMart: > http://www.mtc.ca.gov/facts_and_figures/datamart.htm > MTC FTP Site: ftp://ftp.abag.ca.gov/pub/mtc/planning/ > Personal WWW: http://home.earthlink.net/~clpurvis/ > *******************************************************

25 years, 11 months

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